Instinct
by Enness
Summary: A little “What if?” fic, basically created as a reason to put Xander and Oz together. Because that’s just fun to do. Slash warning, naturally.
1. Prologue:Where Everybody Knows Your Name

Title: Instinct

Author: Enness

Sequel/Series: 1?

Summary: A little "What if?" fic, basically created as a reason to put Xander and Oz together. Because that's just fun to do.

Warnings: Slash later on, possibly some minor angst. Depends on how things unfold.

Rating: T for now, will probably go up to M later.

Disclaimer: I own nothing, Joss Whedon is my Master etc.

Dedication: To Karen Nick for the beta!

A/N: The Woody/Cheers thing is actually unintentional. "Woody" is a shout-out to a TWoP poster (**Set**, IIRC) who gave the name jokingly to the low-rent version of Willy who appeared in "Family", and I only realised the link with the title when it was already written.

* * *

Prologue: Where Everybody Knows Your Name 

Woody looked around the bar as he wiped up a spill on the counter. Just another quiet Tuesday evening; too quiet for Woody's liking. Business had been steadily declining for the last decade or so, and every night it seemed like less and less of the regulars were still alive. Woody had weathered a lot in his time – he had bought a bar almost identical to this one for a pittance in a little stinkpit of a town in south California from a guy named Willy, who had opted to leave the exciting world of bar management after taking one beating too many. After an earthquake destroyed the bar (and the town with it), Woody had taken his insurance money and run, buying a new property and setting up in this new little stinkpit of a town in Ohio, which seemed to have a plentiful supply of his particular clientele. Since then, Woody had endured robberies, fires and fistfights of the kind most bars had never seen, but he had persevered. After all, his was just about the only establishment of its kind in the tri-county area, and even an army of Slayers hadn't been able to thin out the steady supply of demons simply looking for a place to sit down, relax and enjoy a few pints of blood or viscous fluids, or gnaw on a bowl of entrails.

But thirty years of constant slaughter takes its toll, and Woody was reaching the point of desperation – the only thing stopping him from doing something about it was the fact that he was pushing sixty-five, and the concept of starting in a new line of business seemed too much to cope with. Better to ride out the slump for a few more years, then sell the property and retire on the funds – that is, assuming he didn't get himself killed by either a disgruntled customer or an angry Slayer in the meantime. This was hardly an occupation that lent itself to employee safety.

Woody felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up, and look around to see a man at the other end of the bar staring at him. Once the man had his attention, he nodded at the empty bottle in front of him. Woody grabbed a fresh one – only regular beer, nothing unusual for this guy – and plonked it down in front of him while popping off the top in one fluid, practiced movement.

"There you go, Danny. You want anything else?"

Danny shook his head without even looking up and Woody backed off. There was something inherently threatening about Danny, something that everyone in the bar seemed to recognise, that kept an apparently normal human safe in a bar full of monsters. He wasn't tall – in fact, he was a little on the short side, and his hair (unkempt and grey, with flecks of the natural red still showing in patches) and clothes (torn, baggy and generally unclean) gave him the appearance of a bum, yet he always had the money to pay his tab at the end of the night and he didn't cause trouble, so Woody let him be. Still, no one could deny there was something creepy about him – if not in the unidentifiable power he gave off, then in the dead stare of his eyes and the fact that he had never been known to string more than six words together at once. Danny gave off one very clear signal – he just wanted to be left alone.

Tonight, however, it seemed that Danny was going to be disturbed. As Woody watched in silence, a tall, blonde girl in her early 20s walked into the bar. She seemed to hesitate for a moment, looking around uncertainly, then she regained her composure, strode across the room and slid onto the seat next to Danny, calling over to Woody:

"Vodka on the rocks please, when you're ready."

A slight Irish lilt to her accent only served to make her seem exotic, adding to her natural good looks, and Woody was impressed. It wasn't often his establishment got patrons this young or beautiful that weren't simply interested in killing things, and although several of his other, more mystically perceptive regulars were staring at her, they seemed to be appreciating the view rather than fearing for their lives, so he assumed she wasn't a Slayer. As he poured her drink, she turned to Danny and gave him a flirty smile.

"Hi there," she offered, but Danny said nothing in return.

Woody smirked to himself – in the five years Danny had been coming here, he'd barely interacted with a single other customer – the odds of this girl getting him to spring for a drink were somewhere between slim and nonexistent. Indeed, she met with nothing at first but dead silence – Danny didn't even look at her. This didn't deter her, though. As Woody walked over to her with her drink, she tried again.

"C'mon, Oz. Surely you're not rude enough to let a lady buy her own drink?"

Danny's twitch was slight, but noticeable. Looking up at Woody, he nodded – the barkeeper was so shocked he almost dropped the glass he was carrying. He set the glass in front of the girl and wandered away, busying himself by organising the yak urine in order of strength, but carefully eavesdropping on every word they said, a skill honed by years in the profession.

"How'd you know that name?" Danny asked the girl. There was no threat to his words, but no real curiosity either, simply a flat query like someone asking about the weather.

"The same way I know that you stopped using it after she died. It reminded you of being younger, of being with her, and boy is _that _something you'd rather not be faced with every day."

This time the reaction was far more obvious – Danny's face broke, and there was far more emotion in his voice as he gasped out "How…?"

"All these years of hanging around demons and you've never met a sibylline one before?" she asked him lightly, but her tone became more soothing as she continued. "And I'm sorry to bring up painful memories, but the second I walked in here, I sensed you – your pain, your loss, and most of all your need to talk about it."

Something was seeming…off to Woody. This girl knew everything about Danny, and seemed to want to help him for no reason other than helping him. Woody had learned over time that there were very few demons around who would offer something for nothing, but before he could process this thought any further, he was distracted by another customer ordering a round for himself and three of his friends. As Woody busied himself fetching their drinks, the girl kept on talking.

"I suppose I've gone about this kinda backwards. My name's Neasa, and I don't normally wander up to random bar guys and offer to help them, but you…you're different."

"Different?" There was a hint of curiosity in Danny's voice, tinged though it was with cynicism.

"Well, yeah. I've never met someone who held onto their pain as much as you do - you've been sitting on this hurt and regret for decades, haven't you?"

"So you're gonna help me," Danny suggested, sounding more than a little bitter. This wasn't the first time someone had decided he needed saving, and he was sure it wouldn't be the last.

"I'm going to try. At the very least, I can listen to you, give you someone to talk to."

"And I'm supposed to just open up to you?"

"What's the alternative?" she shot back. "Sitting around this dive all day, thinking about the past, wishing…what exactly _are _you wishing? That you could save her? That you could give it another shot?"

The "dive" comment caught Woody's attention again, and as he heard this last bit, he realised who and what she was. If he had caught it straight away, she'd have been out the door – he had heard enough stories of unfaithful guys ripped apart from the inside or tight-fisted bosses crushed by a physical manifestation of their own egos to know that her kind were nothing but trouble. Their powers were limited on their own, but when acting as a conduit for someone else, they could cause almost infinite problems But Danny was wounded, stunned into honesty by her calculated, incisive comments. Before Woody could warn him, he had replied to her, filling in the blank.

"I'm wishing I could change it."

Woody stared in horror – this was worse than he had imagined. Temporal folds, and world-altering spells in general, were very bad for business, not to mention the continued existence of the universe. The girl smiled, her ridged, demonic face revealed, and as Woody saw a flash of light and felt the world rip into pieces around him, he heard the faint echo of her last words.

"Works for me."

* * *

Danny blinked, momentarily disoriented. As he tried to take in his surroundings, he realised there were no surroundings to take in – he and the girl were still sitting on the bar stools from Woody's place, but they were now in the middle of a huge, black space that seemed to stretch out to infinity. As he played back over the last few seconds in his head, he realised exactly what he had just said, and everything made sense – as Neasa started talking again, she simply confirmed it. 

"Five minutes in and I've got an open-ended wish that you get to practically tailor-make for yourself, plus a free vodka in the mix. Hot damn, but I'm good."

"You're a vengeance demon."

"Ah, the vengeance phase. We all go through it, you know," she said with a smile, sounding almost nostalgic. "Officially, we're supposed to be called 'justice demons', but we're very much misunderstood. I mean, yeah, the younger ones tend towards the 'Someone has screwed you over, let's make them pay' type-cases, but after 5,000 odd years, that gets a little old. Me and mine, we tend to find people who have gotten a raw deal of things and balance the scales – it goes a little way towards paying back the damage we've caused, and plus, toying with the universe is pretty fun. And you, my friend, have had one hell of a raw deal. You had so much potential, but when you heard about that witch and her…untimely passing, well, you just stopped. And three decades later, give or take a year, you still haven't started again. You know, for a time, they thought you might be ideal for a little revenge, payback for the one who killed her…"

"Buffy wouldn't have done it if she had a choice," Danny replied, but he sounded as if he was parroting someone else's words. This was something he had had to tell himself to keep from losing it in the days, the months after he heard. It was the only thing that stopped him from going feral. On some level, he hated Buffy, but a tiny part of him knew she wasn't to blame, and that was enough to keep him in check. "She had lost control of it all, just like I was always afraid she would. Buffy had to stop her."

"…and that's why they gave up on the vengeance route and sent me instead. So here I am, ready to 'change it'. Now, I can see exactly what it is your subconscious thinks you need to change, but I'm kinda curious to see if you'll get it yourself."

Danny ignored her implied question and rounded on her – he would have stood up had he not been afraid that he'd fall into the nothingness. "Why should I believe you? I've met vengeance demons, I know how you work. You don't care about justice, you care about a high body count."

"A fair criticism, and I can see why you'd think that, but times have changed since you last met one of us. With a well-trained army of Slayers around the place, we've had to clean up our image a bit – we're aiming less for the 'slaughter' option and more for the 'fulfilment and good times'. Which isn't to say there won't be slaughter involved, but there's an equal chance of you getting a 'happily ever after' out of this. And besides, you've made the wish, I've already started unravelling time, so you might as well indulge me while we wait. So tell me, Oz – what is it you want to change?"

For a moment, Danny was silent. She was right – there was nothing he could do at this stage, and if it was already going to be changed…why not at least tell her what he wanted? It was small, but it was the one thing he could pinpoint as making a difference, the one thing arbitrary enough that he knew would stop him from falling into the same patterns if he did go back.

"If I hadn't gotten out that night…if the door had been stronger, I wouldn't have met Veruca, I wouldn't have had to leave her to figure things out, and I could've been there. I could have saved her…"

"Very good," said Neasa with a smirk, and the world around them flashed again. They were standing in the tomb, where a much younger version of him was pacing up and down the cage, apparently unaware of them.

"Your wish is my command," she continued, waving a hand over the steel door. For a second it glowed blue, and then it was back to normal. She smirked at him again. "It might be corny, but it's a classic for a reason."

"Will I remember?" he asked, the reality of this suddenly facing him. He was still wary, but at the same time, a tiny voice inside him was hopeful – maybe this was the real deal. Maybe this could make it all go right – the way it should be.

"Not a thing, sweetie." With that, she snapped her fingers and Danny disappeared, becoming a swirling column of light that flowed across the room and merged with the younger Oz. For a moment his eyes flashed, and then he snapped out of it – he blinked a few times and was momentarily stunned before he remembered where he was. _Hmm. Must have zoned out or something_ he thought for a split-second, before going back to mentally working out the chord progression for a new Dingoes song, counting down the minutes to sunset, already feeling the change grow inside of him.

Neasa smiled to herself. Five millennia of doing this had left her somewhat difficult to please, but she had a feeling this one was going to be fun to watch unfold. And besides, her mark had left things open-ended enough that, should she feel the need to change a little more here and there, she could do it without repercussions. _This should be interesting_ she thought as she teleported away, leaving the werewolf alone in his cage.


	2. Chapter 1: Back To The Start

Title: Instinct

Author: Enness

Sequel/Series: 2 of ?

Summary: 30 years after the events of "Chosen", Danny Osbourne is tricked into making a wish for Neasa, a vengeance demon; that he hadn't broken out of his cage all those years ago…

Warnings: Slash later on, possibly some angst. Depends on how things unfold.

Rating: T for now, will probably go up to M later.

Disclaimer: I own nothing, Joss Whedon is my Master etc.

A/N: So yeah…five years…how about that? Apologies are kinda worthless at this point, as are promises that it won't happen for the rest of the story, mainly since it probably will. All I can say is that I do regret having taken so long to come back to this, and I will try and see it through to the end this time. (And then maybe finish the other series I left hanging on this site a few years ago. And then finish the three standalones-in-progress still saved on my computer. And then keep working on that novel…)

* * *

**Chapter 1: Back To The Start**

The sun had set over an hour ago, but the campus at UC Sunnydale was still far from empty – people on their way home from the library, heading out to parties, meeting up with friends. Had anyone been paying attention, they would have noticed two people who weren't going anywhere, but simply looping around the campus, doing laps of the various paths and lanes.

"This place is nice." Xander's voice cut across the companionable silence. "Peaceful. Quiet. It's noticeably lacking in both creepy gravestones and that weird mist that always seems to hang around the cemetery. I don't know why we never patrolled here before this year."

Buffy considered it for a moment. "Pretty young people wandering around at night, a lot of them alone, on a campus covered with trees and dark corners, in a town full of vampires. I don't know why I never came here before either." Even as she spoke, her eyes were slowly scanning the ground to either side of them, looking for anyone or anything that shouldn't be there. "Most nights I find at least one vamp hanging around here, and I can still hit the graveyards by midnight for the worst of the new risers. Everyone's a winner."

"Especially the people who don't get eaten," Xander finished the sentiment for her. "And, of course, those of us who get to avoid another night in a dank basement in favour of hanging out and killing things."

"Aww, poor Xander," she mocked, but gently. "No Anya to keep you company tonight?"

"Oh no, she's around, somewhere. I just…needed a night of conversation that didn't involve crude sexual innuendo or people telling me why I'm 'an inadequate male specimen in several key quantifiable areas'."

Buffy grimaced. "Anya – the girl who can make grisly death seem like the funner way to spend an evening." Off his look, though, she relented. "OK, OK, that was borderline harsh. But c'mon, you've gotta admit she's a little intense."

He considered it for a moment. "Yeah. But I do like her. I don't know if it's you-and-Angel, angsty-forever-love, but it's nice."

"Well, cool. I'm happy for you. Nice is...nice." Buffy trailed off, her attempts to sound positive ringing false even in her own ears. Desperate for a new subject, she went for the first thing that sprung to mind. "So, tell me more about this new job. You were massively vague earlier – something about a phone line…?"

* * *

On the other side of campus, Maggie Walsh was on her way home for the night, but her working day was far from over. Once she got home, she'd have just enough time to wolf down a ready-meal, then she needed to finish off a progress report on the 314 project that the Initiative higher-ups wanted ready by 9AM the next morning, before putting together the pop quiz she was planning on springing on her junior abnormal psych class in the afternoon, followed by catching up with as much reading as she could from the latest psychology journals – she prided herself on being as up-to-date as it was humanly possible to be, finding the very idea of giving less than 100% to either of her jobs almost distasteful. If she was lucky, she might get 3 hours of sleep before she had to be up again, getting to the Initiative in time to see if anything new or interesting had been picked up by the night's patrols. Some people would find her work-driven existence empty and desolate, but for Maggie, her work was her life. She loved her normal job, finding an odd but distinct pleasure in educating the minds of tomorrow, and her night job…well, it was her passion. Once Adam was complete and they had perfected the procedure they could create more just like him – an army of super-soldiers ready to fight against the evil creatures that threatened to destroy the world. Knowing that she was running an operation that was responsible for keeping Sunnydale, and indeed the world, a safer place – knowing that her team stood alone against the vampires, the demons and the forces of darkness – was what made Maggie's life worth living.

Distracted though she was by mentally preparing the night ahead, her mind snapped right back into focus when she heard a rustling in the bushes ahead of her.

"Who's there?" she called, mentally cursing herself as she realised she had left her taser and cross back in her office. It had seemed like such a short walk to her car…but perhaps she was panicking too early. Just because this was Sunnydale didn't mean that every rustle was a vampire – it could just be a drunken student who had wandered off the path. Hell, it could be a squirrel.

"Hello?" She edged closer, curiosity and uncertainty over-riding the flight instinct for the moment. The rustling sounded again, louder this time – something big, that was for sure – and she could swear she heard heavy breathing, almost like panting. As she turned to run, however, something burst from the bushes towards her – a huge beast, looking like a dog crossed with a gorilla, covered in long, fair hair and snarling through vicious-looking teeth. She shrieked, hurled her briefcase at the creature and ran, but before she had taken three steps it was on her, knocking her to the ground with ease and landing on her back, pinning her. Maggie had always dismissed the idea that people's life flashed before their eyes in their dying moments as childish superstition. Had she been capable of such higher-level thoughs, she would have gained a grim satisfaction from the fact that, as she felt the hot, fetid breath of the beast on the back of her neck, there was no slideshow, no happy collection of images and moments that summed up her existence. There was simply pain, and fear, and fury at herself for her own carelessness. She felt a jolt of pain as the beast's teeth sank into her, and one last, piercing thought – 'Who'll take care of Adam?' – then darkness.

* * *

In another realm, in what a normal human would perceive only as utter darkness, Neasa stared impassively at a font of water, where Maggie Walsh's grisly death was visible in the cloudy depths. For her, the realm wasn't dark – rather, it was endlessly bright, full of possibility, shaped by every infinitesimally small action taken by every being on Earth. Each choice sent a billion ripples coursing through the void. Almost instinctively, she could feel the changes, see how they would shape the world, and manipulate them to her own will. In another place, another time, she could see Walsh's fate changed – the monster that slayed her distracted by one of its own, Maggie scrambling to her feet and running to safety, and the entire future shaped by this tiny action. But thanks to her influence, Maggie was dead. Nothing would be as it was. Everything from here would be controlled by her and her alone.

"Congratulations. You have ensured that the death of a powerless mortal happened a few months sooner than it otherwise would have. I'm sure the Old Ones are quivering with delight as we speak."

Nease tensed as D'Hoffryn emerged from the shadows around her, his sarcastic words ringing in the void.

"My wish will change more than just her life. Trust me," she replied. Her instinct was to snap at him, but 5000 years of servitude had taught her that despite his amenable façade, D'Hoffryn was not to be trifled with. He watched the scrying pool quietly as the wolf tore its victim to pieces before bounding off into the night.

"They're saying it can't be done," he said neutrally, not meeting her eye.

"They underestimate me," Neasa replied fiercely, power flashing momentarily behind her eyes. "No one else may have the balls to do it, but I do. I will fix what once went wrong. I will save us all."

D'Hoffryn finally looked away from the pool and met her gaze. Neasa was, for a moment, thrown – where she expected to see resentment of her success, of the power she stood to gain, she saw only fear and worry.

"Be careful," D'Hoffryn said, his face etched with worry, the thousands of years he had lived temporarily visible in the deep etches around his eyes. "Even for one of us, 30 years of history is a lot to erase. They won't forget – it will be suppressed, like a dream they once had, but it will still be there. Fate has a way of righting itself."

Neasa felt a shade of doubt cross her mind – was she as sure about this as she thought? If even D'Hoffryn doubted her…but no! She had planned it all, spent years working out the complexities of the timeline. She knew exactly what she was doing, and no doubting elders were going to stand in her way. She steeled her will and met D'Hoffryn's gaze head-on.

"Fate hasn't met me."

* * *

Xander clutched a cross in one hand and a stake in the other, but his weapons didn't seem to be needed – having come across a lone vampire lurking near one of the sorority houses, Buffy had chased him to a more isolated, wooded area of the campus far away from any witnesses and was now proceeding to beat the living tar out of him, her fists a blur as she landed blow after blow on the creature. As the vampire swung blindly in a futile attempt to counter she caught his loose punch, twisted her entire body into his and used their combined momentum to flip him over her shoulder. There was a dull crack as he hit the ground, which Xander assumed was his arm breaking, but the vampire didn't even have a chance to cry out before Buffy plunged a stake into his prone form. Brushing away the dust that had stuck to her coat, Buffy looked up at her friend and smiled brightly. "Where were we?"

Xander opened his mouth to answer, but stopped as he heard something moving through the trees to his left. Buffy, her Slayer senses allowing her to always be three steps ahead, was already moving towards the noise, stake clutched tightly in her hand, cursing herself for letting the fight distract her long enough not to hear whatever this thing was from a mile away. Her instincts, honed to recognise the minute differences between the various gross, spooky and downright unsettling noises a Slayer comes across on a nightly basis, were telling her that whatever was making this noise was larger than a human and heading their way fast. She sensed Xander moving closer to her, ready to fight, and raised a hand – "Stay back." He complied, three and a half years of patrolling having taught him that full Slayer-mode Buffy should usually be listened to. Buffy could hear twigs snapping as the noise came closer. 30 metres. 20 metres. 10 metres – and then Buffy saw it, a huge brown werewolf thundering through the woods. 'Oz', the thought crossed her mind for the moment, but this wolf was lighter and sleeker than the monstrous form her friend took on three times a month. The Slayer part of Buffy moved almost instinctually to place the stake in her hand between her and the charging wolf, but something in her held back – this wasn't a vampire, lost forever, this was a human who would be changing back in a few hours' time. But how to defend herself without harming the person underneath the wolf?

The moment of hesitation was a moment too long – the wolf launched itself at Buffy and sent her stumbling to the ground. She caught its head as it attempted to bite down on her neck, forcing its jaws back, but it had leverage on her and the fall had knocked the wind out of her. She felt the strength in her arms failing, her lungs gasping for air as the weight of the creature crushed her chest, and its blood-stained teeth moving ever-closer to her unguarded throat.

Then, almost out of nowhere, something cracked into the side of the wolf's head, sending it rolling off Buffy and onto the ground. Xander stood over her, a tree branch clutched in his hands like a baseball bat, arms trembling slightly as her stepped over her to place himself between her and the wolf.

"Xander, no!" she coughed out, scrambling to her feet, but the wolf was faster – recovering quickly from the blow to its head, it was already leaping at Xander, who swung too slow – his arm blocked the wolf's jaws from his body, but his makeshift bat skittered away as the wolf pinned him down. It growled as its teeth tore into his flesh, then jerked its mouth away – the sound of his jacket ripping was drowned out by his shriek of pain, blood and torn material flying through the air as the beast opened its mouth again and prepared to bite again.

Buffy was already on her feet and moving – as she reached them both, there was no thought of mercy, no worry for the human inside the wolf. There was only a Slayer, her best friend and the creature about to kill him. She grabbed the wolf from behind and, before it could react, twisted its neck as hard as her considerable strength would allow – with a crunch of vertebra its neck snapped, one final yelp escaping as it died. Buffy pushed the corpse aside, breathing heavily, refusing to let herself think about what she had just done - her heart was still racing as she inspected her stricken friend. Xander was pale, and bleeding heavily from his left arm. Sweat already coated his brow and he looked like he was sinking into shock. Taking off her own jacket Buffy tore a long strip of material from the back, grateful that she hadn't worn anything leather tonight, and wrapped it around the wound as best she could. Placing Xander's good hand over the makeshift bandage, she whispered "Keep pressure on this, OK? You're going to be alright, just hold on to this." He nodded weakly and complied; satisfied that he wouldn't pass out for the next minute at least, Buffy turned her attention back to the wolf.

Looking around to make sure that there was no one and nothing else lurking in the woods around her, Buffy acted quickly, grabbing the dead werewolf and dragging it towards a thick bush. She wasn't sure if it would revert to human form in the morning or stay as a wolf forever, but either way, she didn't want it found before she was long gone from the area. As she arranged the branches of the bush to hide the body as well as possible, she couldn't help noticing the subtle changes between this wolf and Oz, its longer,softer fur, its sharper snout. She'd bet money that it was a girl. A human girl, dead by Buffy's hand. Shaking her head as if the rapid movement could physically shake the horror out, she pushed these thoughts down, returning to Xander and helping him up slowly, throwing his right arm over her shoulder and keeping pressure on his wounded arm with her free hand, murmuring reassuring platitudes as she did so – "It's OK, easy now, just get up and start walking" – as much to calm herself as to calm him. Normally Giles would patch up any wounds that she or the Scoobies picked up while patrolling – turning up at the hospital on a nightly basis might raise suspicions after a while – but this was clearly too serious for that. There was a medical centre on the campus just a few minutes' walk away. She could get help there, far enough away from the body that no one would immediately connect them both to it. One of the few benefits of living in Sunnydale was that a life-threatening injury could be passed off as relatively normal without anyone asking awkward questions. Supporting most of Xander's weight she began to walk him slowly out of the woods.


End file.
